Ireland Appears to Have Voted in a Landslide to Repeal Abortion Ban

During the campaign, the story of a woman named Savita Halappanavar was again used to push for change. Halappanavar died in 2012, the Guardian reports, after suffering a miscarriage in Galway. She went to the hospital 17 weeks pregnant and in extreme pain, and was told a miscarriage was likely inevitable. However, she was refused a number of times after asking for an abortion, because a fetal heartbeat was detected. Abortion is against the law in Ireland even in cases of “rape, incest or fatal fetal abnormality.” She died from sepsis eight days after being admitted, at the age of 31.